After getting a Sonnen bully beatdown, Pierce ready to dish out his own at UFC 143

Josh Koscheck was a wrestler to root for when Mike Pierce started watching the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter.”

But Pierce (13-4 MMA, 5-2 UFC) also couldn’t ignore the fact that Koscheck (16-5 MMA, 14-5 UFC) acted like a jerk and a bully on the show.

Now, Pierce is the latest welterweight to take it upon himself to teach the bully a lesson when he fights the onetime welterweight challenger on Saturday at UFC 143.

The two meet on the main card of the event, which takes place at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. Main-card action airs live on pay-per-view while preliminary-card fights air on FX and stream on Facebook.

As when he first appeared on MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio) and asked for the fight, Pierce said fans want to see Koscheck get beaten up.

“The stuff that everyone else doesn’t like about him, I didn’t like either,” Pierce said today during his latest appearance on the show. “So it just made for a great opportunity.”

The fact that Koscheck ranks within the top-five welterweight competitors in the division doesn’t hurt, either. If Pierce is successful on Saturday, he could arguably lay claim to a title shot within the year, particularly if he can win by stoppage.

Having wrestled from an early age, Pierce is well acquainted with bullies because he was one, at least on the mat. That carried over to his younger brother, who didn’t have the same thirst for contact sports.

But there were times when others taught him a lesson. At the Peninsula Wrestling Club in Portland, Ore., where he first dedicated himself to the art of grappling, he locked horns with a younger Chael Sonnen.

“One time I was picking on my brother at school, and after school was done, I went to practice at Peninsula,” Pierce said. “And my parents told Chael, ‘Hey, Mike was picking on his brother. Why don’t you go teach him a lesson?’

“So I get out there, and this is during freestyle and Greco season where we can throw people over the top. He’s just beating the crap out of me, and he picks me up. We’re walking across the mat. I have no idea where we’re going, and he finds this big throw mat and tosses me on it. He’s like, ‘Yeah, your parents wanted me to do this to you.'”

Former Portlander Chris Leben certainly didn’t ask to be abused when Koscheck harassed him on the first season of the UFC’s seminal reality show. That, and Koscheck’s attitude, turned Pierce.

Naturally, that carried over to Saturday’s fight. Koscheck was smug about the very notion of fighting Pierce.

“He said that line: ‘Do you know who I am?'” Pierce said. “I was like, ‘C’mon, who says that?’ He was a national champion, which I understand, so he’s got a background there. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be the world’s greatest MMA fighter. A lot of great fighters that weren’t national champions fight in the UFC. So that was the starting point for me.”

But ultimately Pierce has to finish things in the octagon by competing at his best, and he doesn’t plan on showing any mercy to Koscheck. When the fuzzy-haired welterweight revealed he was worried about taking a punch in his most recent fight as the result of a broken orbital he suffered in his loss this past year to welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre, Pierce took notice.

“It’s got a big bull’s eye on it,” he said of the soft spot. “I’m not 100 percent sure he’s gotten over that, so we’re going to test it come Saturday.”

Pierce warns that Koscheck’s smugness could come back to bite him, especially if he thinks he’s up against an inexperienced, one-dimensional wrestler.

“Guys tend to key on that and bite on that, and they forget that I’ve been working on my striking for a long time,” Pierce said. “My goal has always to get my striking up to where my wrestling is. Getting people scared and making mistakes is what I’m aiming to do.”

At one time, Koscheck was the picture of one-dimensional, and Pierce liked him a lot better.

Now, “Kos” is a well-rounded guy, and feelings have changed. Pierce is grown up, and he doesn’t like bullies any more.

“I liked him in the beginning, but then as I got to know the guy, it was not my thing,” Pierce said.

MMAjunkie.com Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) live from the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by Gorgeous George, MMAjunkie.com lead staff reporter John Morgan and producer Goze. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.

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